Journal of Construction Engineering and Management

A retrospective view briefly traces graduate‐level educational efforts that have resulted in the emergence of the construction engineer as a recognized member of the civil engineering profession. Then, a prospective view identifies four problem areas that relate to construction activities and should be of concern to civil engineers. These include the need for more effective implementation of new techniques, a reduction of disputes and litigation, improved contractual relationships, and professional teamwork that provides better results for the client. An example based on project scheduling and resource leveling is presented to relate and illustrate these problem areas. The example indicates that after 30 years of application of a “new” technique, a widespread lack of full understanding still leads to improper implementation, that this can lead to extended litigation, that contractual relationships create adversarial relationships in which many civil engineers are losing control to protect their clients, and that due to lack of teamwork by civil engineers in different specialities, prevention or mitigation of damages for the benefit of the client and the public is not being achieved.

During the past two decades, various construction systems have been applied in building several highway bridges and elevated roads in Egypt. This paper deals with the use of value engineering principles to evaluate the selection of construction systems for major bridge projects in Egypt. The construction systems used in Egypt and their applicability under different site conditions were reviewed. The study includes eight construction systems and 14 bridge projects. The weighted evaluation technique was used to evaluate the construction system used for each project in comparison with other applicable alternatives. The most important criteria considered in this evaluation include construction cost, resource availability, ease of construction durability, construction progress rate, service life, design efficiency, and maintenance. The evaluation led to basic conclusions concerning whether the system used in each case was the best choice. A call is made for conducting value engineering studies in the early stages of major bridge projects.

A multipurpose interior‐finishing robot offers a conceptual alternative to single‐purpose construction robots, which are already employed in practice. The robot could be adapted to various tasks, e.g., painting, plastering, building, or tiling, by modification of its effector and control mechanism. The paper addresses two main subjects: (1) It presents an overview of the interior‐finishing robot development process; and (2) it describes the methodology and results of one of the more important development stages—the selection of the configuration of the robot's arm. The development process of the robot included a number of interrelated studies: formulation of the robot performance specifications, the ensuing preliminary design, planning of robot activity in a building, analysis of the robot configuration, adaptation of building technology to the robot's constraints, and physical experiments with robotic performance of building tasks. The analysis aimed at selection of a preferred configuration for the robot's arm involves several major variables: the configuration of the joints, the reach of the arm, the length of its links, and the velocity attainable at the joints. The criteria employed in the selection of the preferred alternative were the general efficiency of operation, the productivity, and the cost of the arm.

This paper describes the relationship between labor productivity and direct work as reported in work‐sampling studies. Seven data bases, collected primarily from nuclear‐power‐plant construction projects, are used. Investigations of a 30‐project data base show that direct work is better in the winter than during the rest of the year, is best during the start‐up and testing phase, and has improved since the Three Mile Island accident. It is concluded that these results are illogical. Using linear regression models, the paper shows that direct work is not related to productivity. This conclusion is based on three assumptions: Reducing wait time leads to increased direct‐work time, increased direct‐work time leads to better productivity, and better productivity is accompanied by less time spent waiting. Each assumption is tested, and the model statistics show very poor correlations and predictive capabilities. The most reliable data base, consisting of 46 data points, yielded an $r_a^2$ value of 0.00 and a standard error of the estimate that is equal to the standard deviation of the performance measure. The conclusion is that work‐sampling studies show how busy the crafts are, and the results cannot be used to predict labor productivity or to quantify inefficient work hours.

The Corps of Engineers managed construction of nearly one‐third of Afghanistan's modern road network. The Corps carried out the project, which took place in several segments over the period 1960–1967, through field offices in southern Asia. The effort was unusual for the Corps in that part of the world because it was strictly a civil project and had nothing to do with creation of military infrastructure. It also constituted the first face‐to‐face confrontation between American and Soviet foreign aid programs during the Cold War and was seen by American political leaders as a test of the national willingness to compete with the Soviets in a nonmilitary arena. The interconnection between diplomacy and construction continued for the duration of the program, and the border dispute between Afghanistan and Pakistan caused the greatest problems. In spite of this dispute and technical difficulties related to the stark Afghan topography and climate and the availability of construction materials, the program was a success.

Hypertext is a data base system of text and graphics that allows a reader to jump from idea to idea depending on one's interest. Hypertext can be applied to construction to provide interactive reference manuals for controlling construction operations. Other potential applications for hypertext in construction include data bases of regulatory information and as advice programs for planning and estimating. An example hypertext data base that provides advice for the construction of asphalt pavements is described. The purpose of the asphalt hypertext system is to consolidate information on the construction inspection of asphalt paving in a single data base. The prototype system was developed using the Hyperties hypertext development program. The system is implemented on an IBM‐AT compatible computer. Hyperties allows drawings to be incorporated in a data base. The asphalt paving system includes drawings of the major components of the asphalt paving machine. The data base has articles of expert advice, standard specifications, and reference documents. Potentially, hypertext data bases can provide construction engineers with improved access to information about construction.

This paper focuses on how the productivity of semi‐automated piping construction for process plants may be improved through constructability‐enhancement tactics. This paper answers the question regarding how field operations activities must be altered to support the automated field effort. The semi‐automated environment of piping erection assumes a pipe manipulator attached to the boom of a 22‐ton, rough‐terrain crane for the base piece of pipe‐lifting equipment. This study concentrates on horizontal process piping erection. Three major categories of constructability issues are addressed. These issues include material handling, equipment capabilities, and equipment configuration. Quantitative techniques used to compile empirical data regarding innovations for a semi‐automated construction process include physical modeling and computer simulation, via a three‐dimensional computed‐aided design simulation software package. There is a 24% construction‐productivity savings occurring when these constructability issues for the automated piping erection system are implemented.

Cost control and schedule control are two of the most important management functions in the construction industry. Major research efforts are focused on developing procedures for improving the effectiveness of cost and schedule control. As a result, researchers are concerned with the quality, integrity, and timeliness of data that flow through such control systems. A number of data models have been proposed to integrate cost‐ and schedule‐control functions, because such integration is viewed as the, solution to the many problems facing construction projects today. This paper provides an overview of cost‐ and schedule‐control functions, defines the desired control cycle, and discusses the problems and needs of cost‐ and schedule‐control functions. A number of integrated cost‐ and schedule‐control data models, which represent the state of construction research in this area, are discussed. The work‐packaging model is briefly described and is suggested as the most likely existing model to achieve the desired cost and schedule integration. Finally, the conceptual design of a foundational data model for control, based on relational concepts, is provided. The recommended design adopts the conceptual structures of the work‐packaging model.

This paper deals with the establishment of initial resource profiles for construction projects, resource leveling of the schedule, analysis of resource usage versus assumed levels, and the adjustment of resource profiles based upon this analysis. The uses of management considerations (reflecting constraints relating to the budget, personnel craft and supervisor abilities, site location, and weather) as well as early‐start/late‐start resource curves in the establishment of the initial resource profiles are discussed. Serial methods for resource leveling and a measure forjudging the effectiveness of resource‐leveling techniques are presented. Finally, methods for revising the initial resource profiles (based upon the output of the resource‐leveling procedure) are discussed. The importance of sophisticated project management and spreadsheet‐analysis software packages is stressed throughout the paper. In addition, hypothetical examples using such software packages are presented.

Traditionally, trenchless excavation construction (TEC) methods have been considered only in congested and critical conditions as an alternative to open cutting. As more utilities are placed underground, the demand for these methods has increased. It is common practice in Japan and in European countries to specify the installation of the complete system by TEC methods. This is a growing trend in the United States. For the project to be designed and constructed with minimal delays and disputes, it is important that the major project decision makers (i.e., owner, regulatory‐agency representative, architect/engineer, and contractor) be familiar with the available TEC methods and the basic principles of operation. The purpose of this paper is to present a classification system and a comparative analysis on the specific methods.

A study is conducted to obtain accurate quantification of all costs associated with construction‐worker injuries. More than five hundred injuries are examined on which cost information was obtained on the indirect costs. Indirect costs are defined to include those costs attributed to loss of productivity of the injured worker, loss of productivity of the crew, transportation costs to the nearest medical‐treatment facilities, time expended to complete various forms related to the injury, and an assortment of other costs not regarded as direct costs. Direct costs are defined as those costs covered by worker's compensation insurance. Results show that the ratio of indirect to direct costs for medical‐case injuries is 4.2 and for restricted activity or lost‐workday injuries it is 20.3. These ratios are extremely variable with injury severity being a primary influence on their magnitude. The study shows why safety experts have difficulty in agreeing on one reliable ratio. The principal conclusion is that the indirect costs of injuries are considerable as evidenced in this research study.

The Shippingport Atomic Power Station in western Pennsylvania is the first nuclear electric generating station to be decommissioned with the goal of restoring the site to a radiologically clean condition acceptable for unrestricted use. In February, 1989, the 921 ton (836 metric tons) reactor pressure vessel/neutron‐shield tank assembly was hauled from a storage area on the plant site to a barge slip; loaded onto an oceangoing barge; shipped from Pennsylvania to Hanford, Washington; and hauled overland to a burial site on the U.S. Department of Energy's Hanford Reservation. This paper reviews the engineering requirements for the land and marine transportation operations. Engineering criteria for the hauling equipment and marine vessels, testing requirements, and operational methodology employed during the multimodal transportation are examined. Recommendations are made for future work of this nature performed as a part of nuclear plant maintenance and decommissioning projects, with particular emphasis placed on hauling‐equipment performance requirements.

The Ft. Drum Project was a high‐risk, large (over $500,000,000) project which the U.S. Corps of Engineers bid on a request‐for‐proposal (RFP) basis rather than the more conventional closed, competitive bid basis. This paper reviews how contractors view such high‐risk projects and how they evaluate and pick joint‐venture partners. It then reviews the RFP method of construction contracting, listing its advantages and disadvantages from the contractor's point of view. From the contractor's point of view, it finds a general lack of advantages to this type of contracting and at least four major disadvantages. It discusses the situation where the owner's budget is significantly overrun and he wants to “improve the project cost” by the use of contractor‐solicited “value engineering” advice. The stated Corps' objective with RFP's is better prices and less claims, but the writer doubts that this will occur. The writer concludes by wondering if the award of a contract to other than the low bidder does not leave the Corps in the position of just prepaying its claims.